Tomislawa Vodenicharov
Tomislawa Vodenicharov, (born Chmela, 1914- present) is the grandmother of Darmanian president Iulia Vodenicharov. She was the wife of the country's first president Eryk Vodenicharov. Early life Tomislawa was born in Vzema, a small town in the Gef valley in which her parents worked as shop vendors. She joined the city guard at the age of seventeen and the royal army at nineteen, a year after the start if the civil war. During the Civil War In 1934 she met her future husband, Eryk, while serving at Ztreganna Fortress, and the two engaged in a brief romance. Tomislawa, however, was planning to escape the royal army and join the freedom fighters as soon as she had a chance. She was not certain of Eryk's opinion of the freedom fighters, despite knowing he was critical of the current king, and didn't let him in on her plan. Tomislawa and her troop left Ztreganna Fortress shortly before a massive attack by the royal forces was launched on the main camp of the freedom fighters, which were forced to retreat. Tomislawa's troop ended up in hiding on the opposite side of the royal army, effectively cut off from the freedom fighters. As they could not reach them, they instead began to harass the royal army on their own. This guerrilla group became known as The Bees for their tendency to launch risky missions which were usually extremely effective, but left all or most of the participants died. Despite the high mortality rate The Bees fought on for three years, their ranks bolstered by volunteers from both the army and nearby villages. In the spring of 1939, The Bees consisted of only five members, and Tomislawa was the only one remaining of the original troop. The royal army was on the retreat, and the freedom fighters, grown into a massive army, steadily gaining ground. Then Eryk was captured after a daring maneuvre by one of the king's allies, Count Vlad II Slatslablad of Blebergrad, and the tides seemed suddenly to have turned. The king gave the freedom fighters an ultimatum, that they would retreat or Eryk be killed, which led to great dissent within the freedom fighter's ranks. The remaining Bees learnt of the dilemma and came to the rescue, however. Only Tomislawa survived this final attack, but it was successful, and Eryk returned to the freedom fighters with her. The remains of the royal army capitulated not long after that. Marriage and later life Tomislawa married Eryk in the spring of 1939, shortly after the foundation of the Bordered Container of Darmanian Soil and Eryk's rise to president of the republic. As his vice-president she became his closest and most trusted advisor; she also enjoyed great popularity with the general population which only gained from her reputation as war-hero. She was sometimes fondly known as Vice-president Bee (a pun on queen bee and her involvement with The Bees). Upon her 50th birthday Eryk announced all queen bees henceforth be known as vice-president bees in the Darmanian language; failure to abide would lead to the execution by firing squad of the queen bee as, in Eryk's words, "human, animal or insect, a monarch is a monarch and should be treated as one. And that means they should be killed. Cause we don't like them. The monarchs I mean." After Eryk's death, Tomislawa retreated to Ztreganna Fortress, which had been her and Eryk's summer home. She now appears infrequently in public.